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100 million more must survive on $1 a day by 2015 by Charlotte Denny and Larry Elliott, Guardian (London) - June. 19, 2002 |
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| More than 100m people in the world's poorest countries will be dragged below the basic subsistence level of a dollar a day by 2015 as they become ensnared in globalisation's poverty trap, the UN warned yesterday.
An in-depth study into the world's 49 least developed countries rejects claims that globalisation is good for the poor, arguing that the international trade and economic system is part of the problem, not the solution. "The current form of globalisation is tightening rather than loosening the international poverty trap," the study warns. As markets become more entwined, the UN says the world economy is becoming increasingly polarised and the least developed countries are being left behind. Shut out of more lucrative markets by western trade barriers, they depend on cash crops for survival, but the prices of their main export goods have crashed over the last two decades. Living standards in the least developed countries, which depend on basic commodities, are lower now than they were 30 years ago. "International policy needs to give more attention to breaking the link between primary commodity dependence, pervasive extreme poverty and unsustainable external debt," the UN says. Simplistic calls for poor countries to open their markets will not help them escape the poverty trap, according to the study. |
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